


Glaciate

by Route212 (AlleyCatSunflower)



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Black & White | Pokemon Black and White Versions, Pocket Monsters: Black 2 & White 2 | Pokemon Black 2 & White 2 Versions
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, Jealousy, Love Confessions, Love Triangles, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Post-Canon, Renamed Characters, Third Wheels, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2020-03-13 10:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18939265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlleyCatSunflower/pseuds/Route212
Summary: Rosie [Rosa] helps N and her cousin Whitlea [Hilda] meet again after two years of separation, but regrets it immediately as she realizes N has eyes for only one… and she's not the one. Spoilers for BW, but not B2W2.





	Glaciate

The sun sank lower in the sky, throwing a cool orange glow on the snow laying thinly on the ground, as Champion Rosie approached the Ferris Wheel, warmth blossoming outward from her heart as she recognized that N was already waiting for her. Her cousin Whitlea's note to her, written in response to a letter detailing all Rosie's various encounters with N, was infuriatingly short. In fact, it said only that she was coming home and to bring N to the Ferris Wheel at five o'clock—and, it added, Rosie should conceal Whitlea's involvement.

Asking N to accompany her to the Ferris Wheel hadn't been so difficult, even if it had awakened the butterflies in her stomach. N liked riding them on any occasion, after all, and he always thought she was asking as a friend. It had been much harder, however, to think of why Whitlea had insisted like that. It would make more sense if she'd ever elaborated on her encounters with N, but she had said almost nothing about him. Rosie knew only that she had faced N in battle, and suspected that she had been searching for him during her world travels.  _But why? To bring him to justice?_ Although she had only known N a short time, she found herself defensive on his behalf, and refused to believe that her cousin could be so unobservant as to think he hadn't changed at all from when he had been king of Team Plasma.

Rosie halted, realizing that N had stopped, and glanced up at him. His hair stirred under his baseball cap as an icy breeze fluttered by, but he didn't so much as shiver: his pale eyes were focused intently on a figure facing them in the distance.  _Whitlea_. She and N approached one another quickly, though they both obeyed some hidden impulse and came to a stop several feet away from one another.

N stretched out an arm, but let it fall limply to his side, and Rosie observed for a moment the barely contained energy between him and Whitlea, crackling like fire or perhaps lightning. Both pairs of eyes were wide with shock, laced with clumsily hidden relief, but his contained a quiet elation that hers lacked. Hers were almost as frigid as the winter around them, but the expression seemed more forced than genuine: the coldness melted into grief at the edges.

Whitlea inhaled sharply, perhaps about to say something, before abandoning whatever words might have been in her throat and letting out a sigh which hovered visibly in the gelid air. Tearing her gaze away from N's with an obvious effort, she stared down glassily at the snow beneath her feet and breathed, "I waited for you."

Lightning seemed to strike Rosie as her cousin's words floated towards them:  _were they going out or something?_ Flames danced furiously in her eyes, and Rosie half-thought that looking at the snow for too long would melt it before she forced herself to cool down again and not jump to any conclusions.

"I know," murmured N, still looking at Whitlea so intensely that Rosie thought he meant to commit every detail of her appearance to memory. "I'm sorry," he added, a bit more audibly, and Rosie thought she saw the corner of Whitlea's mouth twitch in what could easily have been either a smile or a grimace.

Jerking her eyes back up, Whitlea blinked spasmodically, and a tear streaked down her cheek. "I never thought I'd say completely honestly that I'm glad to see you," she said, almost laughing, and Rosie sighed lightly in relief.  _Good. They weren't dating._ Immediately after her initial joy, though, guilt crashed down on her as she recognized the selfishness of her (in all likelihood unreciprocated) feelings for N, and did her best to push her irrational jealousy out of the way.

"I can't say the same for myself," said N, and the brilliance of his smile shone on Whitlea with an exuberant light. Rosie saw, though, that he was trembling—probably not because of the cold, but rather raw emotion. As N moved infinitesimally closer to Whitlea, wavering between hanging back and stepping forward, she glanced up again, another tear making its way down her cheek and dripping into the snow, and he stilled immediately after that single, tiny step.

Rosie's heartbeat quickened with unwanted realizations, but she had no power to interfere: to N and Whitlea, nothing existed but each other, and the gradually disappearing space between them. "Are you all right?" asked N, enough affectionate concern radiating from his eyes that Rosie enviously half-thought Whitlea would no longer have need of her denim jacket for warmth. "Can I do anyth—"

"You d-didn't come back!" interrupted Whitlea, startling N enough that he backed away a step, throwing an arm up before him as though to physically defend himself. "Zekrom and I were  _w-worried_ about you! How could you be so—how could you—" She cut herself off, her glare too hurt to be angry, but refused to give in completely to her tears.

N closed his eyes and exhaled deeply; the lingering sigh, full of soft wistfulness, seemed to echo sibilantly in the otherwise silent winter air. "I'm sorry," he whispered, quietly enough that Rosie had to shuffle forward to hear—doing her best not to break the spell that had settled on N and Whitlea like a frost. "You know I had to leave. I couldn't bear to stay in the region where I had been hurt so badly." He pursed his lips as though debating falling silent, before shaking his head agitatedly a moment later and continuing, "But Unova was the place where I met  _you_. I only realized, after traveling the world… that I'd never been as happy as I had been here, because…"

He trailed off, face noticeably reddening as he fidgeted with one of his bracelets, and Whitlea flushed as well. Rosie stared between her cousin and her crush, recognizing more and more the symptoms she had been dreading. She settled despairingly on clinging to the faintly glimmering hope that Whitlea would respect her feelings for N—of which she had been informed via mail—but even that practically nonexistent light was fading fast.  _Please tell me this isn't happening!_

"You sh-should have told me you were all right," mumbled Whitlea, tears seemingly subsiding as she drew a somewhat shaky breath. "Your goodbye was almost like… you weren't planning on coming back again. Ever." She closed her eyes momentarily before looking up into N's again, and Rosie resented the tenderness flickering between them. "I—I took it on faith you'd return someday. After all, it wouldn't be like you to just… disappear, forever."

N opened his mouth, frowning—perhaps to contradict her—but Whitlea raised her voice slightly, indicating that no response was required. "When you didn't come back, I thought you might be in trouble. I was responsible for destroying your entire world. I wondered if you were doing okay—if anything had changed. You showed me you were capable of accepting different ideas, but then you left, and I didn't know for sure if you'd gone back to your old ways."

Whitlea smiled sadly; there was almost a pleading aspect to her gaze, as though begging forgiveness, but N's warm and gentle expression granted it instantly. Rosie leaned closer involuntarily: this was more about her greatest victory than she had ever been told before. Whitlea had kept her story brief, saying only that she had defeated Team Plasma's king, the name of whom she had let slip was N. When Rosie had eagerly pressed for details at Whitlea's seventeenth birthday party—shortly before her cousin had departed—she had heard only that the rest of Team Plasma wasn't really worth a mention. The only other information Rosie had received had been from N himself.

"A while after I brought the other six Sages to justice, I embarked on a journey of my own," Whitlea was saying, meeting N's curious and somehow hungry eyes again with renewed determination. "I tried to release Zekrom, since I thought I was a failure instead of a hero after staying in one place just waiting for you, but it wouldn't leave me. I think it said that it would stay until I found what I was looking for." Whitlea gave a shy and somehow luminous smile. "I think it's been said that Zekrom appears before a Trainer seeking ideals, but I was searching for you. I think that means…  _you_  are my ideal, N Harmonia."

Rosie's jaw dropped in indignant jealousy for a moment before she remembered to rearrange her expression into one of shock, on the off chance that either one of them would notice her.  _I knew it!_ she moaned inwardly, studying N's reaction with dismay: how pleased his expression was, with undiluted sweetness shimmering in his eyes! Closing the gap between himself and Whitlea with a single, deliberate step, he stood directly before her in radiant, triumphant glory, like the king he really was. "And you are my truth," said N, smiling contentedly. (Rosie's eyes stung, and she looked away, unable to bear the truth she had initially suspected.) "I only realized it around a year ago. Till then, I had just been exploring, redefining my universe—not looking for anything specific… but when Reshiram told me to think about who really helped me most along my journey…"

A cruel silence ensued, and the lengthening shadows began fading into the growing darkness. Rather than look at the warmth dancing between her cousin and her crush, Rosie stared emptily at the chilly sky. Stars were beginning to emerge, twinkling coldly down at the scene below them.  _It isn't fair._ Rosie could neither allow the moments to unfold as they were, nor could she bear to interrupt N and Whitlea. Leaving was equally disquieting; she would find no solace in solitude, knowing that these two would still have each other.

"Thank you, Rosie," said N suddenly, shattering the frosty silence, and a jolt ran through her heart as she realized he was speaking to her. She had been invisible to the two of them for so long, she was surprised either of them even remembered her existence. "You've done a lot for me, too. You showed me that with such a determined heart, anyone can capable of being a hero." He flashed her a brief grin, shining in the dusk, and the corner of Rosie's mouth tugged upwards automatically, but it was more a hollow reflex than a genuine expression of her feelings.  _He really is oblivious._

Whitlea nodded her agreement, but her eyes were distant, as though she were still in shock at N's real and true presence. Rosie stepped back, aware that the spell had been broken with her inclusion, and turned away as graciously as possible, walking in the opposite direction and dreading the undeniable truth.  _They love each other. Even if they don't realize it fully now, they will soon. And I'm alone._ Forcing herself to think positively, she added grudgingly,  _They do deserve each other,_ but the tiny voice that had said it choked and fell silent a moment later rather than say, even internally, that it wished her cousin well.

Rosie helplessly pretended she didn't see Whitlea lunge for N as surely as if she meant to harm him, only to clutch him around the middle instead as though dubious that he was solid; and she made as if she didn't see N reach for Whitlea's hand after she let go of him; and she ignored their childlike rush to get on the Ferris Wheel… but she didn't need to act as if she were blind after they disappeared into the gondola, as tears blurred her vision suddenly, and she found that could truly no longer see.


End file.
